Ontario is better destination for jobs thanks to Michigan’s ‘right to work’ status

Ontario isn’t in the best shape these days. Huge debt, teacher problems, and a premier with a minority government who is still in office but not for long.

Compared to the folks across the border in Michigan, Canada’s most populous province is singing Hallelujahs.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has been signing bills right and right (not left and right) taking away worker rights, access to birth control, overriding voters insistence on getting rid of the takeover-a-city law. Snyder would have signed a bill allowing for guns in schools and day care centers, but the Sandy Hook school shooting made that virtually impossible to do right now.

Snyder was worried about competing for jobs with Indiana. He should have worried about Ontario.

For more on this story, check out this column from our sister blog, CanadianCrossing.com.

Obama, Dems need stronger position for true compromise on fiscal cliff

Despite potential concerns, a flood of locusts will not come through if the United States manages to fall off the fiscal cliff. Also, first-born sons will not be in danger of death due to the fiscal cliff.

Everything short of locusts and the loss of first-born sons has been promised if the Bush tax cuts expire and spending cuts kick in at the end of the year. Panic in the streets.

Y2K promised us some panic, but comparably, that potential panic is nothing like the potential panic we are forecast to get if we fall off the fiscal cliff.

What we’re hearing from Republicans and some elements of the mainstream is that compromise is what we need to avoid going over the fiscal cliff. Their cries of compromise after almost a decade of digging the deficit deeper ring hollow as the Dems only know compromise.

Let’s acknowledge that keeping the Bush tax cuts for an extra four years is compromise enough. Republicans during the campaign whined about how President Obama was blaming Bush for what was happening for the last four years. The tax cuts were still there and that was Obama’s fault.

The Bush tax cuts were self-imposed compromise, the worst kind, so the idea of giving that up as “compromise” is a sick joke if keeping them hadn’t done enough damage to the economy in the last four years.

The latest GOP strategy is to tie reforming Obamacare to solving the fiscal cliff. Obamacare was a compromise, again somewhat self-imposed. If Dems could vote their true feelings, Obamacare would lose in a landslide.

Obamacare still allows for a healthy 17% profit margin for insurance companies for doing virtually nothing. The hassle of paperwork, which other Western countries do not have, will still exist and raise people’s blood pressure in having to deal with those issues.

The problem in the threat of going off the fiscal cliff is that the GOP wants to use that leverage to get more of what they want, i.e., not compromise.

What have progressives gained from this in the last four years? What have the conservatives really given up?

We still spend plenty on defense. Yes, Obama finally shut down the war on false pretenses (Iraq), but we’ll have 6 of President Obama’s 8 years with Afghanistan.

Bill Clinton had to spend his time cleaning up the Reagan/Bush messes on the deficit, hampering Dem attempts to spend money on programs that they want. Barack Obama has had to clean up the George W. Bush mess, forcing self-imposed and other forms of compromise.

And yet the same Republicans who literally got us into this financial mess are crying to keep us from the fiscal cliff, forcing Dems to give up even more.

Obama’s insistence of keeping the Bush tax cuts for those making less than $250,000 is still ridiculous. Low-income people, regardless of party, are being ignored. Dems would be smart to start focusing on them, since they make up the vast majority of potential voters. To be fair, the GOP would also be smart but the party has further to travel to help low-income people since the GOP is still trying to protect millionaires and billionaires.

So what should President Obama do?

If the Dems had taken back the House, the solution would be simple. Go over the cliff, wait for the new Congress to arrive in January and put together a sharp bill. Then again, the Dems should have done this in 2009.

Since the GOP will be in control of the House in December and January with a larger majority in 2013 …

Taxes

Bush tax cuts: dead for everyone. If you have to make a case for “middle class,” set the bar at $100,000 not $250,000. The GOP will whine about small businesses in a compromise. No tax cuts period is a better political sell.

The GOP has been talking about cutting loopholes. Mitt Romney offered up a deduction ceiling. Take those ideas, give Republicans credit for them, and still raise the tax rates. The Republicans get something: credit for ideas and cooperation and Dems get Clintonesque tax rates.

Keep the 2009 stimulus credits, fix the Alternative Minimum Tax (proof of progress), and slightly modify the payroll tax holiday. Show off the modification as proof of compromise. You could give away the payroll tax holiday as proof the economy is getting better, but be willing to keep it for compromise sake.

Ideally, Obama should use Romney as an example and make sure people in his position pay their fair share. The rich won’t like that, but the people will.

Spending

The taxes won’t put the country over the fiscal cliff, though this is what you hear in the press. The real issue to the economy is the spending.

As much as progressives will cheer about defense cuts, the cuts in programs are devastating. And there is little to no shot at getting only defense cuts.

One ideal compromise is that defense plants would make high-speed rail cars and solar panels and devices to capture wind power to build up the infrastructure instead of planes and bombs. That would be the ultimate compromise, since the GOP loves defense spending. Defend us against crumbling infrastructure.

By cutting loopholes and raising the tax rates, the Dems could hit the $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction mark, which would void the sequester cuts. If anything, the $1.2 trillion number should be the fiscal cliff. Obama wants $1.6 trillion over the next decade, a strong position for compromise.

Going over the fiscal cliff on spending would force both hands to work harder on a deal. The Dems have to fight hard for unemployment insurance. Everything else could be negotiated in January. Things would be bad enough on both sides that the $1.2 trillion mark would sound like a better solution.

Of course, the deficit cutting doesn’t help the need to stimulate the economy. Better economic numbers would raise tax revenue and be the best cure for the deficit. Getting out of Afghanistan early, cutting off farm subsidies to rich people, setting the middle class at $100,000 not $250,000 are better ways to reduce the deficit, but those ideas aren’t even at the kids table, much less the adult table. Both parties should get on board with these easy ideas where the American people would support, regardless of party, and neither party wants to make those moves.

Believing government shouldn’t help is one thing, but tell us where the help should come from

“What I believe is obvious, okay. It’s obvious that government should be limited. If the government wasn’t helping us with the food stamps or unemployment, somebody out there would be. Government don’t need to be helping. They don’t need to be helping us, they don’t.”

As Congress closes up shop for another year of legislation, the “do-nothing” Congresses from history books would be envious of the first half of this Congressional session. Horrible economy? Not one single jobs bill. Not even a bad one. And no indication that 2012 will bring any better news.

President Barack Obama is trying what little he can do. Payroll tax cuts and extended unemployment benefits, simple obvious things, are traveling down a rocky road in bare feet. If those moves get passed, they are drops in thimbles in buckets. People need help.

John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and the GOP House leadership are satisfying their constituencies: corporate companies that are “people,” Grover Norquist, an economic philosophy that has been proven to fail, and people who genuinely believe government’s role isn’t to help people in need.

The quote above is from one of those people, Paul Starr featured in the Vanguard documentary “Two Americas.” The documentary shows us two families, one rich and one poor. In the poor family, Paul and his wife April are out of work, scrounging up money just to make sure they still have electricity for the next day.

These people don’t believe the government should help, but they take the help anyway. As the couple scrounge to get money to keep the electricity going, he calls his mother. She is on Social Security; at first, she says she can’t help him, but later offers $175 to help keep the lights on for the couple and their two young sons.

These American people — who believe government shouldn’t help — collect Social Security benefits, are on Medicare and Medicaid, take food stamps, and get unemployment benefits.

These are not uber-rich, they don’t have walk-in closets or domestic help. They are part of the 99%, yet they are tired of people beating up on the 1%. They are behind in their bills, deep in credit card debt, unemployed or certainly underemployed. They don’t raise much of a fuss, almost certainly go to church on Sunday, and want a safe world for their kids.

As part of the documentary, the Starr family watches a GOP presidential debate sponsored by Fox. One of the questions centers around a poll where 66% of Americans think a tax on the wealthy is a good idea to help pay down the deficit.

“The question was, the wealthy. Are the wealthy paying enough?” Paul says. “I think they are,” April answers.

“I know they are,” Paul says emphatically. “I mean, we’re all paying the same thing, right?” asks April.

It would be easy to say they these people are blind, their ears dominated by Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing talk radio and the folks at Fox. The truth is that these media sources reinforce a basic belief these people sincerely believe, and reinforce their fears in the process.

Paul doesn’t have a college education, neither does April. He has worked in the construction industry. He lost his job and has struggled with finding another job. She is having a hard time finding a job. When they get interviews, they get excited, and say the interviews went well. Then the words on the screen tell us that they never got called back.

To get the $250 he needs to keep the electricity short-term, Paul gets $75 from a nearby church and $175 from his mother. There are plenty of other bills that are long past due. April is on the phone, repeating what the phone company is saying on the other side of the conversation that once the wife hangs up, she’ll have no more phone service.

It’s comforting to think that you don’t need the help from government; after all, you think, your neighbor will come through for you. But what if your neighbor is poor and lose his job? In the documentary, they stand outside and see the power company cutting off their neighbors’ electricity for non-payment. Did someone magically come along and help them?

This is the problem with having a 1% and a 99%. If you are on the poor side of the 99%, which is really saying something, chances are your neighbors are pretty poor, too. While the couple in the documentary got enough money to keep the lights on, they lost their phone and Internet service, things you need in a job search.

Even when people are finding work, the money offered is less than they were getting, and less than you would think a job such as that would be worth. Meanwhile, rent, food, electricity, etc. are all going up in cost. As we saw from a segment on NBC’s “Rock Center,” plenty of working people are eligible and taking advantage of food stamps.

The rich family, Javier and Lucinda Loya, in the documentary have three homes and their bills are paid on time. Like the Starrs, the Loyas have two children, both girls. This rich family raises money for charity, and remember when they had very little money. The Loya family is in the 1%, yet their attitude toward those that are less fortunate is more gracious than the Starr family.

When the Starrs watch their neighbors lose their electricity, their focus is on whether they will lose their own power.

Paul finally finds a job for slightly more than half of what he was making … with a catch. He has to travel several weeks at a time for the job. So the family is bringing in a lot less money, not to mention extra travel expenses. They don’t have to feed him at home while he’s gone, but you have to figure that he will have to eat out more on the road, reducing their income even further.

These are people who don’t question a whole lot. If they aren’t getting help from the banks, they don’t tie it into greed or TARP or bailouts. The economy around them is falling apart, but they don’t associate it to decisions made in Washington or Austin (they, like the rich family, live in Houston). They don’t wonder whether the politicians they supported when they lived in Alabama and the ones they support in Texas are voting on bills that have had a negative impact on the economy.

Long-time The Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten once said about a non political person that he “willed himself into a certain protective ignorance about the way life works.”

Paul and April Starr have a political philosophy, yet also have a “certain protective ignorance.” They aren’t alone. And these people don’t all live in the South, though a lot of them do. These are the people that Boehner and Cantor are fighting for when they don’t pass a jobs bill and they don’t help those in need. They don’t want government’s help, but they’ll take it. They still won’t like it, and they won’t vote for people who will help make their lives better. They just don’t get the connection.

Michigan, other states going down dangerous road in cutting unemployment benefits

So how long were you unemployed? If not you, how about your neighbor? Or are you still unemployed?

In the wake of the worst unemployment of a few generations, one state took the bold step of cutting, yes cutting, unemployment benefits. The temptation would be to award that honor to a Southern state that pays out very little and makes qualifying rather difficult.

But no, that “honor” goes to Michigan, the state with consistently higher unemployment than most states.

Starting in 2012, newly unemployed people will get 20 weeks instead of 26 weeks — in Michigan. Really?

This is the time to disclose two key facts: 1) I have lived in MI and have friends and family there; and 2) up until recently, I have been drawing unemployment.

But even if you haven’t set foot in Michigan, and have been fortunate not to have to receive unemployment benefits — this is still a bad way to go.

Unemployment benefits allow people to spend money in the economy. The shopkeeper may not have lost his/her job, but will be hurting if the neighbors don’t have money to spend. Unemployment benefits are a great way to keep local economies going.

Republicans, especially the governors who are striking out against workers, don’t like unemployment insurance. There are pages and pages of insensitive comments made by GOPers on the subject. As hurtful as those comments are, they prove that sticks and stones do hurt more than words.

And Michigan certainly isn’t the only one going down this road. Florida, Arkansas, and other states are looking into reducing unemployment benefits.

The states are whining that they don’t have enough money in their unemployment fund. Of course, the states didn’t keep up those funds, as they are required, during better times. And these Republican governors certainly don’t want to offend companies to pay more, even though companies pay into the funds.

Many who will be affected by these changes in these states voted for these Republican governors and House and Senate members. We’ve seen such economic masochism before  — Reagan Democrats come to mind — but this level sets new highs, or lows, depending on your point of view.

Some of those people don’t think they will ever be in that circumstance, even if the writing is on the walls of our downtowns. So much for empathy. And there is a very good chance that some who voted for Michigan Governor Rick Snyder will be unemployed in 2012 and only be able to draw 20 weeks instead of 26 weeks. Wonder if they will notice even then.

For those voters who complain that the major parties are the same, and there isn’t much difference — well, every governor who have put the worker as enemy #1 are all Republican. Just sayin’.

We have had a series of political and economic events in the last couple of years where the “good guys” are Wall Street bankers and companies that sit on money rather than hiring people and the “bad guys” are people who never got an economic break in the 21 st century who continue to get punished by the system.

Behind the history book, Franklin D. Roosevelt had enough problems in trying to make things better. But FDR couldn’t imagine the headaches that Barack Obama has, and Obama has proven that he will never be half the leader FDR was.

The workers have been punished enough. Someone else needs to pay the piper so we can afford decent unemployment benefits.

Unemployed lose FAC benefits while rich (as usual) get theirs

So we had the big deal over the Republicans keeping the unemployment benefits hostage in exchange for letting millionaires keep the Bush tax cuts even longer. And even though the tax cuts will last another two years, at least we got 13 months of unemployment benefits extensions. Winners, right?

Even before you consider the above factors, there was one element about the unemployment benefits that slipped through the cracks, and no longer exists.

As part of the American Recovery Act of 2009, the Federal Additional Compensation (FAC) program put $25 extra per week in the unemployment benefits. If you were laid off between that date and May 30, 2010, you will eligible for the extra money. But the FAC benefit ran out in December and was not renewed in the negotiations for unemployment benefits.

The $25 extra per week wasn’t going to make a huge difference; however, the symbolism and the actual cash were significant for people whose lives were upturned by losing their jobs.

And the Obama Administration was also good about paying for 65% of COBRA coverage provided you got laid-off within a particular period. Unfortunately, COBRA only works if the company you worked for stayed in business, and a lot of those “small businesses” that the GOP likes to talk about, went under, forfeiting the benefit.

There were small things that the Obama Administration was doing to try and help those who needed help. Those programs got very little coverage in the press, preferring to give time to “birthers” who despite not having a single shred of evidence, were allowed to go on TV and be interviewed about their crackpot theories.

If anything, this country didn’t do nearly enough for those that suffered in these horrible economic times. Many historians and economists believe that the United States was able to eventually thrive in part of the policies under FDR at the worst of times.

But in these modern bad economic times, we worry more about the deficit and debt, we worry about our lost values (even as we work hard to not help those who need help — values), we worry about a black man in the White House.

For those who were unemployed, that extra $25 was a reminder that even on some small level, people in charge were thinking of those who needed assistance. But losing that money is a small sacrifice so that Wall Street can get record bonuses, and the rich can keep the tax cuts they never should have had in the first place.

If Robin Hood were here in 2011, he would be very, very confused. So are we.

John Boehner calls for Obama to fire economic team, but that includes Boehner

Boehner to Obama: Fire Your Economic Team

This was the headline on the CBS News Web site. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) proves in the rest of the article that he is as right on economics as he is pale.

But Boehner did get one thing right, albeit for the wrong reasons. President Obama should fire his economic team.

Of course, Boehner is a part of that team. It was Boehner who pushed to weaken the stimulus with tax cuts. It was Boehner who didn’t want unemployment insurance extensions. It was Boehner who has been screaming about the deficit (bad timing in a depressive recession) but wants to add to the deficit by extending Bush tax credits aimed at giving the rich even more money.

And Boehner, along with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, both deserved to be fired for their attempts to water down attempts to help people when they need it the most.

But Boehner did score political points, and that headline proves it. Most on the far left would also love to see Obama fire his economic team. Boehner singles out Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers. Again, the left would love to see their resignation letters on Obama’s desk. The MSM won’t report that, but the rest of us know it’s true.

And Obama does take some blame for not working harder to make sure the stimulus package was stronger, for not using political capital to fight for working Americans. And where is the second stimulus package?

Boehner and Republicans have used the term “unspent stimulus money” as an excuse to pay for things, such as unemployment insurance extensions. The Democratic politicians set up a bad system if we still have unspent stimulus money. Spend it all and ask for more. Having leftover money — even if it targeted — gives the GOP rope it doesn’t deserve.

The resignation letters of Geithner, Summers, Boehner, and McConnell won’t give us the millions of jobs we need just to tread water once again. But their resignations would help those who do want to assist Americans in need. Boehner can then take some time off and work on his tan.